Theism Sentence Examples

If the word " deism " emphasizes a negative element - rejection of church Christianity - " theism " generally emphasizes the positive element - belief in God.

And yet theism - or monotheism - constitutes a special locus in the history of religion.

We have already suggested that theism covers more ground than the name at first may suggest.

When we do find theism dealing with the question " What is God?

Beginning with the certainties of everyday experience, it reaches theism at last by means of an analogical argument.

Thus, as employed by most writers, " Natural Religion " connotes neutrality or even friendliness towards Christianity; just as is the case with theism in sense (2), or with Natural Theology.

If there is any difference between " theism " or " Natural Theology " on the one hand, and Natural Religion on the other, it is to be found in the more practical character attaching to natural " religion."

An investigator, pledging himself to no beliefs - even perhaps one who definitely disbelieves and rejects theism - may yet interest himself in tracking out the psychology of religion.

We cannot, therefore, call it precisely synonymous with theism.

Some uncertainty may be felt whether pantheism should rank as a theism.

So far as this is true, theism (proper) would seem to be an accident of language.

Belief in a primitive historical revelation, once universal among Christians, has almost disappeared; but belief in a very early and highly moral theism is stoutly defended, chiefly on Australian evidence, by Andrew Lang (The Making of Religion and later works).

Legge, who finds true theism at the dawn of Chinese history, is the most authoritative representative of such views.

But this theism is lifeless - a " pale and shallow deism, which India has often confessed with the lips, but which has never won the homage of her heart.'" The thought of India is upon the side of pantheism.

So that here again theism, if theism it was, did not continue in strength.

If we understand by theism not simple belief in a divine unity, but such faith in one divine person as will constitute the basis for a popular religion, then - unless we allow a doubtful exception in Zoroastrianism.

We may probably extend this hostile judgment to the theism of the modern Samaj-es.

Kant swept away, so far as his influence extended, such " dogmatic metaphysics " and the old-fashioned theism which it constituted or included; but Kant himself introduced, in his own more sceptical yet also more moral type of theistic doctrine, a new trichotomy - God, Freedom, Immortality, the three " postulates " of the practical reason."

Theism si'ggests at the very outset that we should rather expect to find a correlation between the two.

The mention of Christian theology may remind us that, for the majority of theists in medieval and modern times, theism proper has ranked only as a secondary wisdom.

Mill tried to reconcile criminal law and its punishments with his very hard type of determinism by saying that law was needed in order to weight the scale, and in order to hold out a prospect of penalties which might deter from crime and impel towards good citizenship, so Paley held that virtue was not merely obedience to God but obedience " for 1 Criticism of the scheme, from the point of view of an idealist theism, will be found in John Caird's Introduc to the Phil.

So far, this philosophy has little bearing upon theism.

As long as the battle of the philosophies endures, theism can hardly be unified.

Other schools of philosophy pay flying visits to theism; intuitionalism is at home there.

The design argument is available for the slightly bolder philosophy of intuitionalism as well as for empiricist theism.

Still the main weight of intuitionalist theism rests upon the conception of God as First Cause.

If such are our conclusions, we return to a possible basis for theism not very far removed from that of intuitionalism.

Certainly history shows that theism has generally been associated with some reduced or limited form of philosophy, usually with the intuitionalist scheme.

But no more is theism the first runnings of the stream of philosophy.

Theism then has its most habitual affinities with intuitionalism, but may fall under any one of our philosophical or quasi philosophical types.

Theism is directly interested in this, since it affirms the necessity of God's existence.

On the other hand, theism does not desire to see necessity - or Fate - ranked as superior to the living God.

And the chief contribution of Aristotle to theism is a theory, found in his Physics as well as his Metaphysics, of God as first mover of the universe, himself unmoved.

In Anselm's case we have the further sanguine hope of justifying not theism merely but all Christian doctrine to the scientific reason.

The radical side of Descartes appears again in his offering his own type of theism as a substitute for the old proofs - not a supplement.

Leib nitz's Monadology - which has little influence on his theism - may be viewed as a strong recoil from Spinoza's all-swallowing substance.

He nowhere formally argues for the truth of theism.

Whatever one may think of the cogency of such arguments, it seems safe to conclude that thinkers, who dislike constructive idealism, but accept time and space as boundless given quanta, reach in that way the thought of infinity, and if they are theists, necessarily connect their theism with reflexions on the nature of Time and Space.

A more entirely novel and more general principle of Kant's attack upon theism is the challenge of our right to build up the idea of God bit by bit out of different arguments.

The Three Sermons also point to a moral argument for theism, but forbear to press it (Sermon ii.; when the third sense of the word " Nature " is being explained).

A great deal of popular theism is undoubtedly hard hit by it; for popular theism is apt to throw its arguments together in very random fashion.

Mill in the tentative approach to theism found in his posthumous volume (Three Essays on Religion; 1874).

In this instance it may happen that the work of intelligence has only been mimicked in nature by blind forces which have accidentally produced organic life; and Mill is disposed to hold that if the evolution of species should be clearly established as due to natural law - if there has been no creation by special interposition - the argument falls to the ground and theism (apparently) is lost.

If Mill's theism holds, what is it?

Definite theism, bearing the mark of Kant's thought throughout, is found in Hermann Lotze.

And there was the positive ethical element in Kant's theism.

John Fiske, however, an able interpreter of Spencer, reached what he called " Cosmic Theism.

But such lines of thought might carry us outside the limits of traditional theism.

What are the alternative conclusions to theism?

True materialism includes theism.

And idealism in some cases may interpret itself in favour of pantheism rather than of theism.

The theistic writers are usually intuitionalists; but it has been urged above that a fruitful study of theism must in each case inquire what is the writer's philosophical basis.

The student will rarely lose by reading Gifford Lectures; but it will not always be upon theism that he finds himself better informed.

Theology or Theism, (2) Christian Evidences - chiefly "miracles" and " prophecy "; or, on a more modern view, chiefly the character and personality of Christ.

On the other hand, Christians and Jews are pretty well agreed on natural theology; so the New Testament tends to take its theism for granted.

Rashdall - we surely cut down Christianity to the limits of theism.

He wrote articles on free will, the philosophy of theism, on science, prayer and miracles for the Dublin Review.

The author's theism is cold, spiritless, without influence on life.

The theory is a conciliation of Theism and Pantheism.

His theism was a declaration not so much of the greatness of God as rather of the littleness of man.

And as his theism was, so was his religion and his philosophy.

As thus used, it was a term which governed the problems of speculative theism rather than those connected with the historical origin, the evolution and the organization of religion.

Fichte a new speculative theism, and became an opponent of Hegel's pantheistic idealism.

This system he called Panentheism, a combination of Theism and Pantheism.

Lotze's metaphysics is thus distinguished from the theism of Newton and Leibnitz by its pantheism, and from the pantheism of Spinoza by its idealism.

Their interest to the metaphysician is their opposition to physics on the one hand and to theism on the other.

See, further, Theism; Deism; ATheism; Absolute.

In 1744 we find him, in anticipation of a vacancy in the chair of moral philosophy at Edinburgh university, moving his friends to advance his cause with the electors; and though, as he tells us, " the accusation of heresy, deism, scepticism or theism, &c., &c., was started " against him, it had no effect, " being bore down by the contrary authority of all the good people in town."

Hume endeavours to show that polytheism was the earliest as well as the most natural form of religious belief, and that theism or deism is ' See Burton, ii.

His opinions underwent a change in the direction of theism, influenced, he says, by his acquaintance with Coleridge.

Its religious scheme is the simplest form of theism; religion is reverence for God and obedience to His laws.

In Boehme's spirit, Schelling defended his idea of God as the only way of vindicating for God the consciousness which naturalism denies, and which ordinary theism emptily asserts.

One can already discern a movement in various quarters towards a recognition of impersonal theism, and towards fixing the teaching of the philosophical schools upon some definitely authorized system of faith and morals, which may satisfy a rising ethical standard, and may thus permanently embody that tendency to substitute spiritual devotion for external forms and caste rules which is the characteristic of the sects that have from time to time dissented from orthodox Brahminism."

John Tulloch, principal of St Mary's College, St Andrews, wrote Theism, Leaders of the Reformation, Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy in England in the 17th century, and many other works, and was an effective champion of doctrinal liberty.

Robert Flint published The Philosophy of History in Europe, Historical Philosophy in France; his volumes on Theism and Antitheistic Theories have passed through many editions.

From the imperial point of view the sky bore the name of Ti, " ruler," or Shang Ti, " supreme ruler " (emperor); and later commentators readily took advantage of this to discriminate between the visible expanse and the indwelling spirit, producing a kind of Theism.

He has been claimed as a free-thinker of all shades, from undogmatic theism to atheism, and as a concealed Protestant.

On the same bench of a Calcutta college sit youths trained up in the strictest theism, others indoctrinated in the mysteries of the Hindu trinity and pantheon, with representatives of every link in the chain of superstition - from the harmless offering of flowers before the family god to the cruel rites of Kali, whose altars in the most civilized districts of Bengal, as lately as the famine of 1866, were stained with human blood.

Anselm of Canterbury stands almost alone among the great theological masters in working purely from a scientific interest; this holds alike of his contribution to theism and of his doctrine of Atonement.

If the name of " god " is denied to such beings because they receive little cult, it may still be admitted that the belief might easily develop into a form of theism, independent of and underived from animism, or the ghost theory.

It is plain that the All-Father belief, in favourable circumstances, especially if ghost worship remained undeveloped, might be evolved into theism.

This conception has been expressed in a great variety of forms (see Theism, Pantheism).

All theism implies the assertion of kinship between man, especially in his moral being, and God.

Hence, there's moral advantage in accepting theism.

Therefore the existence of moral facts provides good grounds for thinking theism is true.

Slide 11 A Biblically based robust theism has two critical strands.

But even a less than full belief in an epistemological thesis which showed theism to be unjustified would be damaging.

The classical philosophical theism was that there was space outside God in which the realm of creation was made.

Whereas in the case of open theism the philosophy is sound and provides support for the openness position from below.

Professor Boyd seems to recognize the coincidence between Arminianism and openness theism toward the end of his paper.

Unlike in classical theism in God for the process theologians is not omnipotent and does not know the future.

From this point of view theism is a synonym for Natural Theology, or almost so.

The name " theism " makes that requirement less emphatic (see below).

The new phrase indicates that we are to approach the thought of God through a study of religious beliefs phy of and practices; " theism " tended to make God a purely scientific inference from the facts of nature.

With the thought of God, accordingly, there is correlated a modification in thoughts upon all other subjects; and a full system of theism must discourse " Of God, of the world, of the Soul, " like Matthew Arnold's Moses.

But that would only mislead us; free will and immortality are really predicates ascribed - on whatever grounds - to the soul; and it is natural that in theism the soul of man should be a topic second in importance only to God Himself.

Accordingly, even in a hurried survey of the history of theism, we must try to question the systems we are reviewing upon their attitude towards human freedom and immortality, as well as upon their doctrine of God.

Either the fuller or the narrower way of dealing with theism will differ according to the philosophical stand rather the history of many and diverse theistic schemes.

Yet it remains doubtful whether he was a theist with large pantheistic elements - such as every speculative mind will be likely to incorporate in theism -.

Theism is an afterthought - the reply to doubt - the attempted reflective justification of what announced it s elf at first as a prophetic certainty.

Philo is Greek enough to believe in the eternity of matter; otherwise he preserves the main outlines of Old Testament theism.

The middle ages, in the person of Anselm of Canterbury, contribute the first clear form of the Ontological argument for theism.

The earlier of the two volumes on Natural Theology relies on the cosmological argument; the later - obviously an afterthought - tries to vindicate the ontological argument as an alternative basis for theism, but awkwardly and with manifest uneasiness.

One result of these is a very damaging attack upon traditional theism.

The theism of Hegel is ambiguous.'

Emphasis on moral motives is plain in Kant's theism as in Butler's.

If we try to bring the contents of theism under Kant's three traditional arguments, then moral and aesthetic considerations - the " values " - fall under the Design argument or the study of teleology; albeit there is a great gap between Paley's supernatural watchmaker and any moral argument or appeal to the beautiful.

The Platonic or eclectic theism, which adopted the conception of the Logos, made a place for Christ in terms of philosophy within the Godhead.

The leader in speculative philosophy is Immanuel Kant, though he includes many agnostic elements, and draws the inference (which some things in the letter of Butler might seem to warrant) that the essence of Christianity is an ethical theism.

Bruce, Chief End of Revelation (1881), The Miraculous Element in the Gospels (1886), Apologetics (1892), and other works; Bruce's posthumous article, " Jesus " in Encyc. Bib., was understood by some as exchanging Christian orthodoxy for bare theism, but probably its tone of aloofness is due to the attempt to keep well within the limits of what the author considered pure scientific history.

But in his very denial of a cruel, limited and capricious agency of the gods, and in his imaginative recognition of an orderly, all-pervading, all-regulating power, we find at least a nearer approach to the higher conceptions of modern theism than in any of the other imaginative conceptions of ancient poetry and art.

As a nickname the term "agnostic" was soon misused to cover any and every variation of scepticism, and just as popular preachers confused it with atheism in their denunciations, so the callow freethinker - following Tennyson's path of "honest doubt" - classed himself with the agnostics, even while he combined an instinctively Christian theism with a facile rejection of the historical evidences for Christianity.

Hence, there 's moral advantage in accepting theism.

He seeks to defend a theism which is common to Judaism, Christianity and Islam but his main business is with Christianity.

Well, we start of with a brief overview of Christian theism.

Firstly, Malcolm presumes a certain understanding of God based on traditional Christian theism which is typically expressed in realist terms.

His philosophy is an attempt to reconcile monism (Hegel) and individualism (Herbart) by means of theism (Leibnitz).

Fichte, in short, advocates an ethical theism, and his arguments might easily be turned to account by the apologist of Christianity.

In point of fact, as we look to history, we find that theism has been much simplified and cut down.